1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus, and, more particularly, to a printhead carrier having a zero clearance bearing arrangement.
2. Description of the Related Art
The quality of the formed image is dependent, at least in part, on the tolerances and alignment of various components in the printing system. A typical ink jet printer, for example, includes a printer frame mounting a series of rollers that define a media path for a sheet of media. The sheet of print media is transported by the rollers along the media path through a print zone. In the print zone, one or more printheads carried by a reciprocating printhead carrier eject ink onto the sheet at predefined locations to form an image thereon.
The printhead carrier is guided by one or more guide rods which extend in a direction transverse to the direction of media travel. The carrier includes fixed bearings which contact a guide surface of each of the one or more guide rods.
Although this configuration may provide adequate printing results, in such an arrangement the interface between the printhead carrier and the guide rod(s) may induce vibrations that result in positioning and alignment errors between the physical location of the print nozzles of the printhead and the desired print locations on the sheet of print media, as well as may be a source of undesirable noise in the printing apparatus.